Research Funding cycle: 2016-21

Private water supplies provide ~3% of the Scottish population with their main source of drinking water. Many more people encounter private supplies when they stay in holiday accommodation and visit the more remote parts of Scotland, although PWS can be found in urban areas. The quality of these supplies is variable; many have adequate treatment and are well managed, but others present a risk to health due to the quality of the raw water and inadequate, or absent, treatment.

Restoration of river habitats by restoring physical habitats offers significant opportunities for improvements to biodiversity. To date in the UK and Republic of Ireland (RoI) there have been many different examples and types of restoration work undertaken. Despite this progress there remain issues relating to the quality of the evidence base for restoration, its implementation and its promotion as a viable strategy to improve river biodiversity, ecosystem status and maintain the key services that we rely on.

CREW’s role is to support staff in SG, SEPA and Scottish Water (our end users) in their work to develop and implement water related policy in Scotland. As policy needs evolve, CREW also continues to evolve.

This report summarises the work undertaken at the James Hutton Institute of a modelling analysis of nitrate loads across Scotland as one stream of evidence to help underpin the NVZ review being undertaken by SEPA for the Scottish Government. This modelling work formed part of the core RESAS funded research.

This report responds to a CREW call down request submitted by Scottish Water to support the establishment of a pilot Water Restoration Park at a waste water treatment works (wwtw) to reclaim, recycle and market the waste water. The research sought to investigate potential locations to pilot a Water Restoration Park, regulatory frameworks and potential markets for the recycled water.

Scotland's Centre of Expertise for Waters, CREW, delivers objective and robust research and expert opinion to support the development and implementation of water policy in Scotland. During 2012-13 CREW has supported policy teams working on Hydro Nation, flood risk management, catchment management and the Water Framework Directive, drinking water and waste water services, as well as wider policy.

The December 2013 edition of CREWs NEWs is available now. Find out about CREW events, projects, contract opportunities and competitions as well as news and events from the wider water sector. If you have any comments about CREWs NEWs or would like to advertise an upcoming event please get in touch.

In urban areas, the impacts of surface water flooding can be very severe as such environments are generally densely populated and contain vital infrastructure. In recent years there have been regular occurrences of urban flooding in many parts of the UK with surface water flooding accounting for approximately one-third of flood risk from all sources (Houston et al., 2011).

This project was undertaken for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, via a request to the CREW call down service as part of a range of SEPA initiatives under their Embedding Ecosystem Services work stream. The objective of this report is to review the process of River Basin Management Planning and identify how and where an Ecosystem Services Approach might assist SEPA in improving their delivery of the Water Framework Directive.

A short policy paper has been requested by Scottish Government via the call down service, detailing the issues managers come up against when implementing NFM in relation to UK reservior legislation.  Information is sought on whether these issues still apply under the new Reservoirs Act.